Hell Dawn

Cortez adopted a grim smile as he listened to the chase unfold. He was ready to put this guy under wraps, forever and for good. They’d spent the past couple of days scouring Frisco, Breckenridge, Dillon, Leadville, and any other Rocky Mountain town within a fifty-mile radius, looking for some sign of him. They’d come up empty. Cortez had to admit that, for a computer geek, Fox had done a pretty fair job of covering his tracks. Fortunately for them, he’d gotten sloppy, overconfident and had made a rank amateur mistake, using his own credit card to access a public Internet terminal. The cyberteams in Mexico and Denver had caught the transaction and alerted Cortez. The contents of the e-mail had been encrypted so Cortez couldn’t be certain who the programmer had contacted. The uncertainty just added a measure of urgency to their chase, which the young Mexican didn’t mind at all.

A voice buzzed in his earpiece. “Cortez?”

“Go.”

“Got him in the alley,” Juan Vasconez said. “Tell the chopper to scoot. We don’t need the damn thing hovering overhead and drawing attention.”

“Clear. Warbird, you heard the man. Go!”

“Right.” An instant later the thrumming of helicopter rotors intensified and the craft headed west, likely circling outside the city limits, but staying within earshot of the fighting.

“He just cut between buildings,” Vasconez said. “The boot shop and the antique mall. Can we get a vehicle there to cut him off?”

“You heard the man,” Cortez said.

From a couple of blocks away, one of the SUVs screeched into a U-turn and made its way to the position. Cortez was in motion, closing in on Fox with long, quick strides, his hand inside his coat and yanking the Browning from its holster. Pressing the gun against his side, he let the folds of his coat swallow it.

“Shit, he’s turning back on me,” Vasconez said.

“Let him,” Cortez replied. “Don’t shoot. I repeat, do not shoot.”

“Right.” A pause. “He’s got a gun!”

The sounds of a scuffle filled his earpiece and he cursed under his breath as he crossed the street and came within twenty yards of the SUV, which had rolled to a stop. The driver’s-side door popped open and the guy stepped out. A siren blared from somewhere beyond view. Someone shouted something, and, though he couldn’t make out its content, Cortez knew it was a command of some sort.

“Shit,” Vasconez breathed. “Cop.”

Cortez’s heart pounded as he closed in on the scene. “Do not engage,” he said. “I repeat—”

The crack of a gunshot stopped him in midsentence. Damn, damn, damn.

Even as he continued toward his quarry, the beating of helicopter blades sounded from behind, growing louder, reverberating from the walls of the nearby storefronts, the noise drowning out all else. Rotor wash caught the tails of his coat, whipping them around his legs.

Whipping around, expecting to see his team’s helicopter, he caught sight of another craft, a black helicopter, touching down in the middle of the street. He stopped dead, and a moment later a side door slid open and a big, blond-haired guy stepped onto the pavement. A gray-haired man with the thick chest and shoulders of a bull and a smallish guy with brown hair and a mustache followed. The maelstrom whipped up by the helicopter parted their jackets and Cortez was sure he spotted at least one holstered weapon among the three of them. Apparently they’d missed the gunshot and had no idea they’d just touched down in a hot zone. Good, he thought. He knew how to play this one to his benefit.

He surveyed the craft and felt an unsettled feeling move into his gut. Other than a tail number, the craft carried no identifying markings, and the men wore no uniforms. His weapon still hidden, he spun on a heel and started for the group. Cortez fastened a single button on his coat to keep from revealing the Ithaca, and fumbled for the FBI credentials looped around his neck. Another of his men, the driver of the second SUV, a Chicago killer named Johnny Hung, fell into step behind him.

Cortez knew all his players, of course, meaning he had three interlopers stepping onto his territory. His mind working overtime, he decided on a plan. Take out these bastards, take their helicopter and go home with the big prize.

CARL LYONS HAD a bad feeling about the black-clad guy from the get-go. Forget the credentials hanging around his neck or the smile creasing his thin lips. It was the hand that remained at his side, lost in the folds of a black leather duster that spoke volumes to Lyons, telling him everything he needed to know. Instinct honed first as an L.A. detective and later as a covert commando screamed that the guy was looking for blood, even before Lyons’s eyes confirmed this.

The guy’s eyes narrowed, a harbinger of something bad, and Lyons felt himself tense. A glance left told him that Blancanales, though smiling, was also eyeing the guy warily. With the helicopter’s rotors thumping over-head, the two men couldn’t easily converse, and Lyons had made the mistake of not yet putting on his earpiece and throat microphone.

Three other men had fallen in with the approaching man, their presence only heightening Lyons’s cautiousness.

Schwarz was just behind the other two men, working to set down the wheelchair ramp for Kurtzman. Turning, Lyons motioned for Schwarz to stop and pay attention. Before he could turn back, he saw Kurtzman’s eyes widen and he raised his hand to point. Lyons whipped around, his hand already stabbing under his jacket for the Colt Python.

Things began to happen quickly.

The lead guy’s hand was coming up in a blur. He snapped off two shots in Lyons’s direction, immediately putting him on the move. The rounds burned through the air, missing the big commando by inches before smacking into the Chinook’s hull.

Lyons cleared leather. He brought the Python to bear on the guy, ready to line up a shot. He halted. A young man stood on the curb, frozen by the gunfire. The black-coated shooter squeezed off two more rounds at Lyons. The commando thrust himself to the asphalt. His elbow absorbed the impact, white-hot bolts of pain emanating from the joint. He ground his teeth and rode out the pain. He tried to line up another shot at the guy, but he’d stepped onto the curb. Turning to Lyons, he smiled, then grabbed a handful of the bystander’s jacket and shoved him into the street just as Lyons was trying to get in a shot.

The man disappeared through the front door of a nearby building.

Holstering the Colt, Lyons fisted the .357 Desert Eagle he carried on his right hip in a cross-draw position. He paused long enough to put his earpiece in place before crossing the street with long strides.

A voice buzzed in his ear. “Ace to Ironman.” It was Grimaldi.

“Go.”

“According to the scanner traffic, we’ve got shooters behind the line of buildings ahead of you.”

“Is our package back there?”

“Unknown. But these guys put down a cop.”

Lyons cursed under his breath, but kept moving. An instant later Blancanales fell into step with the Able Team leader and the two men moved onto the sidewalk. At the same time Lyons caught the sound of sirens closing in from the distance, the wail eliciting another oath. Adding more guns, even those wielded by good guys, introduced new variables into this volatile equation. And he knew, again from experience, that these officers would hit the scene with blood in their eyes, wanting to put down the shooters.

And since Able Team had the guns…

Lyons keyed his throat microphone and spoke. “Get the bird in the air. And call the Farm for a cleanup crew on this. Tell Hal, or Barb, or whomever, to start greasing the wheels. Otherwise we’ll be stuck here.”

“Roger that, Ironman,” Grimaldi replied.

From behind, Blancanales had stepped in close to a nearby building, raising his weapon to cover Lyons while he edged along the line of stores, occasionally ducking below the length of a window. Covering another building length, Lyons found an alley opening to his left. Halting, he craned his neck to peer around the corner. Even as he did, another shot rang out, followed by a strangled cry.

CHAPTER THREE

Kneeling behind the front bumper of a maroon Ford Taurus, Schwarz ground his teeth and rode out a blistering fusillade of gunfire as two hardmen emptied automatic weapons into his cover. Bullets pounded through the vehicle, flattening tires, rending upholstery, shattering glass. An occasional round pierced the car’s sloped hood, exiting within inches of Schwarz’s crouched form. Lead pounded the engine block, pinging like metallic rain as the block stopped the rounds from ripping Schwarz apart.

Only moments earlier, the Able Team commando had started around the edge of the sedan, his micro-Uzi carving a path for him while he looked for the black-clad killer. When a flash of motion had registered in his peripheral vision, he had dived behind the Ford, his combat-honed reflexes taking him off the firing line a heartbeat before death found him.

A momentary break in the gunfire provided Schwarz a chance to raise his head slightly over the hood to scan the scene, but he saw no one. His opponents apparently had gone undercover while reloading their weapons.

Moving in a crouch, Schwarz rounded the car’s front end, now with his M-4 assault rifle leading the way. Climbing onto the sidewalk, he moved along the edge of the line of vehicles, his senses alert for any sign of trouble.

The sudden slap of feet against concrete drew his attention. He wheeled toward the sound, scanning for a target, his finger tightening ever so slightly on the trigger. A heavyset woman, apparently considering the silence a chance for escape, darted out from inside a drugstore, her worn leather purse clutched tightly to her chest. Seeing the commando, his weapon pointed at her, the woman froze and screamed.

Shit!

Schwarz pointed the rifle barrel skyward and waved her on with his free hand. Eyes bulging, the woman stood there rooted to the spot, her lips working wordlessly as her overloaded mind tried to process the events unfolding around her. Realizing the numbers were falling too fast for such a distraction, Schwarz felt his own anxiety creep up a notch.

“Move!” he yelled, hoping that the sound, if not the word, might jar her into action.

His command startled her, but she stood still.

Damn it! Left with no other choice, Schwarz surged forward and grabbed the woman by the arm. The instant his hand gripped her bicep, the fingers sinking into the cushy flesh, the woman screamed and threw a haymaker at Schwarz’s jaw.